Kasteev State Museum of Arts

The Kasteev State Museum of Arts is Kazakhstan's national art museum, housing the largest collection of visual art in the country. The permanent collection spans Russian and Soviet painting, Kazakh fine and decorative art, and works from across Central Asia. The Kasteev rooms on the upper floors are the heart of the collection: his paintings of steppe life, horse festivals, and collective farm scenes are richly coloured and historically fascinating.

The museum also holds temporary exhibitions of contemporary Kazakh artists, many of whom work in styles that blend traditional motifs with international contemporary practice. The building is in the cultural district near Republic Square. Allow at least two hours; the signage in English is adequate for orientation. Closed on Mondays.

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The museum is named after Abilkhan Kasteev, the first professional Kazakh painter, who worked in the Soviet era and whose vibrant, large-scale canvases documented nomadic life at the exact moment it was being forcibly collectivised. His work is both a celebration of the culture he grew up in and an inadvertent record of its destruction. The tension in his paintings is evident once you know the context.

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